In times of health and sanitary crisis, laboratories are crucial in providing reliable data for emergency preparedness and response. In Zimbabwe, Ronald Timbe, UN Volunteer Medical Epidemiologist, is engaged through WHO in COVID-19 response surveillance activities led by the Ministry of Health and Child Care. He works on the development and revision of COVID-19 surveillance tools, including the production of situation reports.

While COVID-19 severely impacted the most vulnerable communities, its effects were also felt across UN programme countries, reversing many positive gains in sustainable development. To support countries and UN partners in their response to the pandemic, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme invested its resources to deploy UN Volunteers with partners, financed through its UNV Special Voluntary Fund.*

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased demand for remote work and data access. At the same time, countering stereotypes and misinformation has become necessary for the progress of the pandemic response efforts. However, in many countries, the information systems and architecture necessitated by remote environments have lagged behind. As a result, access to health information and healthcare has been complicated.

During 2020, the WHO Country Office in Kazakhstan initiated and conducted several missions in collaboration with Dr Joanna Zwetyenga (Denmark), Technical Expert on Laboratory issues, Biosecurity and Biosafety from the WHO Regional Office in Europe. The first mission concluded with Dr Zwetyenga developing an action plan to strengthen laboratory response to COVID-19, with recommendations to train national mentors to support the laboratory capacity of staff conducting testing for SARS-CoV-2.

In 2021, Spain, represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will continue to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by deploying 16 Spanish fully funded UN Volunteers worldwide. For instance, these volunteers will support UN efforts to defend human rights, promote gender equality and foster food security in Latin America and Africa. 

In crises and emergency situations, volunteering provides governments and civil society organizations with greater flexibility and response capacity. This is particularly true in humanitarian crises, further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic

In 2022, 5 nationals of Luxembourg served as UN Volunteers. All were fully funded by the Government. In addition, the Government of Luxembourg generously sponsored two assignments for nationals of its development cooperation priority countries.

In 2022, 157 Koreans served as UN Volunteers, 123 of whom were funded by the Government of the Republic of Korea. In addition to the full funding programme, Korea actively supports of UNV and volunteerism. In 2016, the Republic of Korea presented its Volunteer National Report. In addition, it was one of the 124 co-sponsors of the UN General Assembly resolution on Volunteering for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/C.3/73/L.13) in 2018.

The Norwegian Government supports full funding of UN Volunteer assignments for Norwegian nationals. In 2022, 27 Norwegian nationals served as UN Volunteers through funding by the Government of Norway. Norway is one of the 124 co-sponsors of the 2018 UN General Assembly Resolution on Volunteering for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/C.3/73/L.13).

The Government of Germany is a long-standing key partner of UNV, and regular partner consultations take place with the two lead ministries in Bonn and Berlin, and with the German mission to the UN in New York, to assess and advance this multi-faceted partnership: the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Federal Foreign Office. The focus of the recent dialogue was on the current collaboration as well as broader issues related to the UN in Germa